


rise (landscape with the fall of enjolras)

by owlinaminor



Series: children of the barricade [2]
Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Gen, Human Nature, Philosophy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-17
Updated: 2014-04-17
Packaged: 2018-01-19 17:13:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1477579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/owlinaminor/pseuds/owlinaminor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>damn their warnings, damn their lies, they will see the people rise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	rise (landscape with the fall of enjolras)

**Author's Note:**

> Recommended reading (and viewing): http://english.emory.edu/classes/paintings&poems/williams.html (See if you can find Icarus in that painting. Or, rather, see if you can find his legs.)
> 
> Warning: if you are a huge Enjolras fan, you probably shouldn't read this. (I love Enjolras to death, but I don't agree with his ideals or Victor Hugo's glorification of his failed rebellion. Thus, this fic.)

> _damn their warnings, damn their lies, they will see the people rise._

perhaps he was a god.

they will say he was a god.  when they speak of him, it will be with reverent voices, benedictions to the innate goodness of his convictions and the brilliant color of his hair.  they will paint him with words and with oils, an apollo bathed in golden light.  they will remember the blood of the battlefield, but they will forget that it touched him.  perhaps he was a god.

it does not matter, one way or the other.

what matters is this: rapid cannon fire, flashes like lightening, smoke too thick to breathe, a red flag lying in tatters, the slow drop of bodies to the cobblestones.

he has always seen the best in humanity, because he never looked deep enough down into the sewers.  when he was seven, his mother’s maid stole her best pearls to sell on the streets and he insisted that she be given a pay raise.  (the maid was fired in disgrace, and he never smiled at his mother again.)

he was born with rage in his soul, burning inside him like a red-hot iron fresh from the blacksmith.  for years, he scowled at bourgeoisie (and they forgave him, because his face was oh-so-pretty) until he went to university and learned what his ideas were called.

_liberté, egalité, fraternité._

“give me liberty or give me death!” he screams from the tops of buildings and park benches and trash heaps.  “join in our crusade!” he calls to anyone who will listen.  “the people will rise!” he answers if you ask him why you should bother.

revolution sings in his blood.  perhaps he was chosen to lead the people to victory.  (if he does not believe that, his followers certainly do.)

the people did not elect him.

his desires are simple – equality for all men – but dig beneath the surface and there is no substance.  ask him how he knows the people will rise, and he says the people are innately good.  ask him why the people are innately good, and he says they simply are.  as though his convictions are strong enough to make the impossible a reality.  his words have no proof (they have power, yes, but proof and power are two radically different things.)

why does he believe humanity can govern itself without corruption?  why does he believe humanity can govern?  why does he believe humanity?  why does he believe?  why?

he has always believed in humanity more than humanity believes in itself – that will be his downfall.

(perhaps he should have listened more closely to the cynic.)

and so, there is gunfire, and blood, and so much screaming that children for miles around will never stop having nightmares.  he stays confident and passionate to the last – perhaps he realizes how badly his followers need him to keep his golden halo of a head aloft.  perhaps he simply does not know how to act any other way.

he has always been an actor.  his performance has always been spectacular.  his final curtain call will be sure to do him justice.

he fights until the very end – after all, who is he, if he is not fighting?

the torn flag is red, red, red.  red, the blood of angry men.  red, the blood of fallen men.  red, the blood of fallen schoolboy soldiers with so many bright ideas.  red, the heart of their all-too-fearless leader.

the music swells and it is over too quickly (not quickly enough.)  his last thought is that someday, another revolution will remember him, and that revolution will win.

what does winning mean, precisely?  shall we ask him?  he does not know.

the barricade falls because barricades have always fallen and will always fall.  paris tried revolution once – it was a bloody dress sewn with the entrails of nobility and painted with the blood of innocents, and it did not suit her at all (or it suited her too well.)  perhaps someday she will try it on again, but if she does, it will not be soon.

with every king that dies, they will crown another.

his wings failed him.  he flew too close to the sun, and a long, hard fall is only the customary punishment.  as his flag tears and his schoolboy soldiers run out of ammunition, the people slumber in their beds.

the people slumber in their beds.  most of them do not dream, but some of them do.  somewhere, a farmer boy bites into the fruit of his labor.  a tiny girl with stars in her eyes has just learned her first word.  two hears are about to discover that they belong to each other.

life goes on.

(mankind will never be entirely free, but it is free enough to learn how to be happy, and is that not enough?  it was not enough for him.  perhaps he was wrong.)

they will write odes to him.  they will call him a speaker for the ages.  they will mourn his death for centuries to come.

perhaps they should not.

oh, remember him, certainly – but remember him as you remember all of his predecessors: a cautionary tale.  too young to die, too old to live.

give him what he deserves.

perhaps he was a god.  perhaps he could have out-fought the king and out-shone the sun.  who are we to know?

if you ask me, he was only a man (one small figure in an elaborate painting), but i will not follow his example – i will not tell you what to believe.

you can judge him for yourself.


End file.
